Vanish in the air
by Nocturnus
Summary: How could Hermione cope with weakness?. Could Severus learn to care?.WIP.
1. Stairs

Stairs.1

**Disclaimer:**

I own nothing, is all J.K Rowling. Cheers to her!.

Thanks to Telosphilos, Lady Clover, Elwen Rhiannon, Susan, Sleepsong and Dried Plums for beta service and useful comments.

The Hogwarts stairs and corridors were deserted. It was the first period of a chilly Monday. It seemed like the frost had silenced whatever attempt at mischief a student could have made, so the castle's corridors were quiet, except for the occasionally rumor of a teacher's lecture.

Or it would have been, but for the sound of shuffling footsteps. An odd figure, the one of a lonely young woman, a broken one, was there. She had the bearing of an old woman, fragile and weak, as if every step came with a great effort. The silence of the corridor went right to her soul.

Hermione went down through the corridor. She knew that professor Flitwick meant no harm, in fact he had been kind in asking her to go and rest in her quarters. What he didn't know was that there was no possible rest for her. The taste of humiliation and failure was in her mouth. She was sick of this ever lasting winter.

She has been dead tired for weeks, months if I come to think of it. At first she thought of it as a coming flu, which never arrived, but there it was: the sore muscles, the fatigue, the need to sleep, and the permanent migraine. She dealt well with it. Her grades did drop a little bit, but nothing so dramatic as to make her professors notice. She had to work harder these days to be at her usual standards, but it was nothing she couldn't handle. Well, not until today.

She has failed. Publicly failed.

_And with an Obliteration Charm, of all things. Dam it!. _

She has done it correctly since her third year It was an easy charm for her. Something had gone wrong, it is as if her magic had weakened. The little professor sent her to sleep through the day, assuming she was just a little stressed and dismissed any other concern. Her guts clenched,

_What if she was loosing her magic?, what if..?_

Hermione inhaled deeply, as to summon some calm. Her hands clutched the banister. Hopefully this time the bloody steps would not move that much. She was in no mood for their shenanigans today.

_Just three hundreds and forty steps and you are there_. She encouraged herself.

Looking up to the impossibly long stairs. She sighed.

_They weren't that long a month ago . . ._ a small voice whispered inside of her head. _"Shut up."_ She muttered.

A week ago she counted each and every step that lead to Gryffindor Tower in an attempt to make her march easier. Her joints hurt, especially her knee. It was as if a needle was crushed inside it.

_For gods sake Hermione, when did you turn up into this whiny old woman? _

The pain eased at times, to her immense relief, but it returned full force whenever she needed to use the stairway.

_Two hundred and eighty six more steps._

_There exists a relationship between body and mind; perhaps there is also a correlation between the body and one's magical abilities . _

She has taken some measures, such as taking all the things she needed from her room early in the morning, so there was no need to return to the tower. She also started heading to classes a few minutes earlier than the rest of her fellows; so she could go slowly and stop if it hurts too much where no one notice. Sure Ron and Harry, had teased her a bit. The attribute these new habit to her academic anxiety, "the know-it-all that need to be in time for class" . She was glad no one had notice.

_Just two hundred and twenty more._

After the events at the end of her fifth year at the MOM, she has started feeling different.

_Not that much, mind you_.

She gained a little weight, and started those insomnia nights.

It wasn't that bad during the summer hols, but once the school started, things got harder.

_A hundred and seventy-two left_.

She went to bed dreadfully tired only to wake up a few hours later. She started secretly brewing sleeping draught, but it did little good. She would fall asleep, true, but she would wake up unrested. So she started taking some pepper-up. At first, it was only one every single morning. Now she takes it daily. And its no good.

_And it does no good . . . Admit it . . ._ _It's ridiculous how tired I am all the time_

If she was honest with herself, she would have to admit something was wrong. She has never been lazy; it was another quality that she would not allow in herself, but now . . . well . . . if it weren't for the pepper up potion, she really didn't know how she could manage her days

_A hundred and two, Granger_.

She has never being more tired in her entire life, not even in her third year, when the time turner helped her with the double schedule.

_Hermione Jane Granger, stop whining and grow a spine!_

She corrected her posture, and continued climbing, her breath came in an unsteady rhythm. Her knuckles were whitening while she held her body erect. She just wanted something to numb the pain.

_Just eighty more steps and then the corridor._

She made a steady hissing sound through her teeth, as she tried to lengthen her inhalation as much as possible.

_Sixty two more. _

Slowly exhaling all the air, she faced the last part of her task.

1 For now, I will not disclose what happened to Hermione. It is based in a RL disease. A young boy, a LJ friend of mine, described his experience with this words "I no longer go to school, or talk to anyone from my school. My mom and my sisters are the only people that understand at all. My grandma understands some, but basically she thinks all is pretty mild, since her's is. My aunts and uncles all think I fake it for attention and to manipulate my family into to doing things for me. My father thinks that his wife has the worst thing in the world. She doesn't have any sort of illness, just a mildly bad back. He compares me to her all the time. I haven't spoken to my father is about a month. I haven't seen him in 3 months. Oh yeah, I'm 16 years old."

2 Hermione cast this charm to hide any traces of the trio trip to Hagrid's hut, in POA. (Harry Potter Lexicon)


	2. Hospital Wing

Chapter 2.

Disclaimer: See chapter 1. Also this chapter has been written with the great influence of Mario La Cruz, "Gaudí, a novel".

**Hospital Wing.**

He was lying very still.

The weak autumn sun played upon the walls and the ceiling of the infirmary. The tremulous leaves of a tree were bright and whispered with the evening breeze. He thought about a magical kaleidoscope his parents. He thought about a magical kaleidoscope his parents bought him as a child. The colors of lights running and jumping in front of the toddler had delighted him. The waves like the shining glow of timid fairies playing in the lake. Golden shadows. Going back to a world of light and shadows... he slipped back to his dreams.

Everything was dark except the corner with the deadly lamp. He was faking sleep, he enjoyed the feeling of power that the simulation gave him, he has slept for days, maybe weeks. He feels as if he were flying slightly,(as if the fever had made him translucent. Next to the lamp, he could hear murmurs. The words 'Pneumonia' and 'funeral service' float to his ears. Even if they were meaningless to him, by the way they were pronounced he understands that they imply a lethal threat, part of the adult world, and he felt vaguely important. "_The kid is seriously ill...he needs to rest...he is frail_". He felt the absence of grandma, he missed her cold hands on his front, the soothing words that make him feel safe. Far from there someone closed a door, then he fell asleep again for an eternity.

Was he awake? Deep in the night he heard his mum quietly weeping, from so far a away that maybe it was a dream. It was a sobbing that came from Hades. Everything was dark, and he was alone. He recognized that voice and no, it wasn't a dream. The voice was too high and the shadows too deep to be a real dream and again he fall asleep. He slept more than he could imagine.

There were murmurs again, next to the door in the corner. The room was chilly and the air seemed sharp. It was early in the morning and the sun projected a golden resplendence on the wall above his head. His father's face was gray, then the words suddenly became comprehensible. The healer let his sentence drop with the full force of his professional potency. It was almost as he was delighted to say it, _"I'm sad to tell you this Mr. Snape, but as with your mother, your child's situation is very extreme. He'll soon follow her, there are no possibilities for him to recover"_. He saw his father's head fall in helplessness and the healer hand in his shoulder. "_You must accept things as they are, is all in the goddess hands". _

_At least is not in your hand, you foolish man_. He hated that healer because he made his mum cry and kept his granny away. He also, and this was unforgivable, make his father suffer. The father was invincible, omniscient. He was the light and the darkness in Severus's life. He adored and feared his father beyond measure. Father was a force capable of the most intimate concern and despotic fury when he failed to heal his son. Severus wanted nothing to do with healers, gray faces, suffering and funerals. Once again he let himself be drawn effortlessly in the profound deadness of unconsciousness.

Day had come again, Madam Pomfrey was preaching to the poor soul in the next cubicle, and he was as bored as any creature has been since the beginnings of time, of that he was sure.

"_Stop coming here girl_"

"_But... sore_"

"... _All in your mind._"

A spiral of messy words going into his head "... _tired_", cluttered, "..._drained_", confused, "_exhausted_...." He knew about that, he has been so worn out, lost, for years. Again, lethargy caught him off guard and came untangled in his jadedness.

He was gone-- back to his origins-- to his mother's womb, touch his roots and recover in plenitude. Gone back to the shadows across the ceiling; to the shining glow of the fairies at the childhood lake

_Find the origins_.

Untainted energy.

_Touch the roots_.

As he had when grandma grabbed the roses just to show him the knotted roots. He could feel the strong smell of moist earth, the pull of Grandma strong hands. He was delighted, just as when the roots touched the water, and are so happy about it that one can feel it... Like the roots of that Willow next to the family lake. He remember eavesdropping on its dryad. Her spring leaves in the water surface, her long brown hair transform in a heavenly halo when light trespass it. Grandma said she was grieving her lover lost. She said that was why the Willow always weeps for she will never see the intensity of his eyes again.

But grandma was old, and she knew nothing about lovers, only about little grandsons. The legend was wrong, it can't be true. It says that the mournful willow leaf trembles because it was devastated. But such a beautiful lady can not suffer. How could such beauty be touch by suffering? What can be more happy than the dryad touching the water with her barefoot? Once he grew up, he would find the lady, and will love her as his grandma loved him. He would never abandon her, not as Grandma did.


End file.
